Texas, where science and history have become ideological battlegrounds

PBS will show the story of the Texas State School Board's assault on facts.

The Texas state capital building in Austin, where some of the action takes place.

Scott Thurman

Some of the most important decisions that influence the public's knowledge aren't made by scientific societies and they don't take place in Washington DC. For the most part, they're made in the capitals of each state, as each has its own standards for what students leaving its public schools should know. Those standards set lesson plans and help decide which textbooks are acceptable.

That latter feature means that states with large student populations, like Texas and California, have an outsized influence on education in other states, as textbook publishers work hard to ensure that their products can sell in the largest markets possible. So the state school board in Texas, an elected body that approves education standards once a decade, can have a widespread impact on the US education system.

Unfortunately, the schoolboard in Texas has been a mess. Elections with tiny voter turnouts have put in place religious and ideological warriors who want to rewrite textbooks in the image of their own beliefs, disregarding the expertise of the people who actually know the subject areas at issue. Their contentious assault on science and history standards, which took place in 2010, has been captured in the film The Revisionaries, which PBS' Independent Lens will be showing this coming week.

The process for creating Texas' educational standards is mostly a sound one. A panel of educators and subject experts, often drawn from the academic community, decided which subjects are most relevant and what students should know about them. The standards are then handed over to the board for approval. But the soundness ends there. The board, which may not (and in many cases, does not) have expertise in these subject areas, is allowed to delete, edit, or replace any of the standards recommended by the experts.

And oh boy, do some of them relish the chance. You can see how much respect then-Board Chairman Don McLeroy has for expertise in the clip below, where he wonders why none of them support his tortured misrepresentation of Stephen J. Gould.

Don McLeroy pleads with his fellow board members to join him in fighting the experts.

McLeroy, a young-Earth creationist who thinks the world is 6,000 years old, is one of the center points of The Revisionaries, which opens with him being grilled in the state capital. He was nominated by Texas governor Rick Perry for another term as Chair at a time when, as one of his questioners notes, there were 11 bills under consideration to strip him of his existing powers. Yet somehow, he came within two votes of being approved.

The movie follows the testimony and actions of the board as it tears through—and in some cases, tears up—the science and history standards that were forwarded to them. It uses footage of hearings and votes, along with interviews of many of the participants, including a professor involved in writing the science standards, and Kathy Miller of the Texas Freedom Network, an organization dedicated to limiting the impact of the board's more ideological members.

And they are seriously ideological. McLeroy is quoted as saying, "education is too important to not be politicized," while fellow board member Cynthia Dunbar claims that "education is inherently religious." And she apparently treats the board meetings the same way, as she's shown giving an opening prayer in which she calls for Jesus to help everyone recognize that the US is "a Christian land, governed by Christian principles."

The existing Texas science standards had language that called for the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution to be taught. That language has opened the door to the sorts of spurious criticisms that McLeroy is fond of (and apparently, subjects some of his dental patients to). So when the proposed new standards came to the board without any mention of strengths and weaknesses, McLeroy and others fought hard to put them back in. As a compromise, the board simply renamed them to "analyze and evaluate," creating awkward results like instructing students to "analyze all sides of scientific information" about evolution.

If anything, the history standards were worse. Dunbar claims she's a "big fan" of Thomas Jefferson, but thinks a "secular humanistic ideology" has clouded current interpretations of his work. So she cuts him out of the standards on the Enlightenment and its influence on the US' founding documents, instead substituting in pre-enlightenment figures like Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. Further revisions to history come rapid fire, as others try to add the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, and NRA to a section on the '80s, and another person tries to make sure Barack Obama's middle name (Hussein) is added to the text where his name appears.

One board member, looking at the results, is seen saying, "I feel that I have let down the students in our state because all those kids in our schools right now, when they get to college, they're going to learn the real history."

The movie ends with McLeroy losing his reelection bid by a few hundred votes, but already thinking about running again at his next opportunity. But some of his many opponents note that the changes he helped make to the standards will be influencing entire generations of students before they're next revised in 2020.

Enough people describe the whole process as a mess that it's no surprise The Revisionaries struggles to lay it out in a narrative. The challenge is made larger by the filmmakers' decision to provide little framing for the footage, other than sporadic notes scratched on a blackboard to give some sense of the timing and location of the clips. As a result, the movie really doesn't work if you go into it hoping to get a history of the Texas school board. In fact, it would probably be better if you went in to things with a rough outline of the events (the one in this review would be enough).

But if you've got that, the film is a fascinating glimpse into the sorts of thinking that drive the public controversies that have happened in Texas and elsewhere. The issue is probably best captured by some footage of McLeroy away from his work on the school board, teaching a Sunday School class at his church. In tackling Noah's Ark, he only spends a brief moment on the moral import of the story, and then he's off with a scale model of the ark, discussing how its interior could have been organized. Before the scene ends, the children are out on a soccer field, laying out the shape of the ark and counting out known species of animals, all in an effort to show it could work.

For some people, it's not enough to have beliefs. The facts have to be made to comport with them, and everybody else then has to agree with those facts.

The Revisionaries will be appearing on PBS' "Independent Lens" this week. You can find out more details at the PBS site.

441 Reader Comments

That latter feature means that states with large student populations, like Texas and California, have an outsized influence on education in other states, as textbook publishers work hard to ensure that their products can sell in the largest markets possible.

With the lower cost and flexibility of eBooks one particular market shouldn't influence as much.

While I appreciate the need to stop these Revisionists, I think the article comes across as too spiteful. The scare quotes and palpable disgust are not necessary when your readers are well-informed enough to form their own opinions on the issue.

It's also worth noting that you don't win against these people using anger to mobilize those who agree with you, or using shame. These people can't be shamed, and voting/protesting the Revisionists out of office will not fix the underlying problem of a misinformed public.

If you want to win the war against ignorance, you do it by educating the stupid, not yelling at them for being stupid.

EDIT: Wow! Look at those downvotes! There are some very angry people in here. You can be angry at religion all day long; that's not going to solve your problem, but you're welcome to try.

That latter feature means that states with large student populations, like Texas and California, have an outsized influence on education in other states, as textbook publishers work hard to ensure that their products can sell in the largest markets possible.

With the lower cost and flexibility of eBooks one particular market shouldn't influence as much.

Alot of it is not the physical cost of printing the books but the actual cost of creating and editing them. An ebook is not going to help that at all, in fact having multiple versions will just increase costs.

It's also worth noting that you don't win against these people using anger to mobilize those who agree with you, or using shame. These people can't be shamed, and voting/protesting the Revisionists out of office will not fix the underlying problem of a misinformed public.

If you want to win the war against ignorance, you do it by educating the stupid, not yelling at them for being stupid.

But thats the heart of the problem when those selfsame people hijack the education system

These people wouldn't be receiving education from Texas' public schools. They are well past college-age, so their education would need to come in the form of subject matter experts. A religiously-inclined scientist would be especially helpful in easing them out of their misconceptions.

That's what the BioLogos Foundation had as their mission since 2007, trying to get people to accept evolution by "respecting their faith". They've failed spectacularly, and have now switched over from trying to promote evolution to evangelical Christians, to coming up with ways to twist biology so that it comports with the Bible. If the tactics you suggest were effective, they would have worked by now.

It's also worth noting that you don't win against these people using anger to mobilize those who agree with you, or using shame. These people can't be shamed, and voting/protesting the Revisionists out of office will not fix the underlying problem of a misinformed public.

If you want to win the war against ignorance, you do it by educating the stupid, not yelling at them for being stupid.

But thats the heart of the problem when those selfsame people hijack the education system

These people wouldn't be receiving education from Texas' public schools. They are well past college-age, so their education would need to come in the form of subject matter experts. A religiously-inclined scientist would be especially helpful in easing them out of their misconceptions.

You're assuming those people want to learn... They seem quite happy in their ignorance. Leading a horse to water and all that.

I feel that I have let down the students in our state because all those kids in our schools right now, when they get to college, they're going to learn the real history.

...but isn't the idea to keep these kids out of college? Teaching mythology as fact, combined with reducing state funding for higher education to make college unaffordable, makes for lower labor costs, higher church attendance (and tithing), and a political base that can be rallied to drive the next generation even further into ignorance and poverty.

...but isn't the idea to keep these kids out of college? Teaching mythology as fact, combined with reducing state funding for higher education to make college unaffordable, makes for lower labor costs, higher church attendance (and tithing), and a political base that can be rallied to drive the next generation even further into ignorance and poverty.

Nail, meet hammer. "If people actually start thinking, they'll notice how terrible our policies are! We need to make sure the next generation of voters doesn't know how to think!"

That latter feature means that states with large student populations, like Texas and California, have an outsized influence on education in other states, as textbook publishers work hard to ensure that their products can sell in the largest markets possible.

With the lower cost and flexibility of eBooks one particular market shouldn't influence as much.

Alot of it is not the physical cost of printing the books but the actual cost of creating and editing them. An ebook is not going to help that at all, in fact having multiple versions will just increase costs.

The vast majority of the cost in creating a book, any book, is in everything except the physicality. Between 80-90% of a typical books cost is in writing, editing, marketing, etc. The balance is even worse for books that require a large number of subject matter experts, such as textbooks, as SME's do not come cheap and often you need dozens or even hundreds of them, depending on the topic.

That latter feature means that states with large student populations, like Texas and California, have an outsized influence on education in other states, as textbook publishers work hard to ensure that their products can sell in the largest markets possible.

With the lower cost and flexibility of eBooks one particular market shouldn't influence as much.

Alot of it is not the physical cost of printing the books but the actual cost of creating and editing them. An ebook is not going to help that at all, in fact having multiple versions will just increase costs.

The vast majority of the cost in creating a book, any book, is in everything except the physicality. Between 80-90% of a typical books cost is in writing, editing, marketing, etc. The balance is even worse for books that require a large number of subject matter experts, such as textbooks, as SME's do not come cheap and often you need dozens or even hundreds of them, depending on the topic.

So many children abandoned to ignorance. We owe them, but I don't know what to do.

As for reaching certain people with logic - they can't be reached that way! Give it up, they don't think that way. Stop thinking they do things like you do. Just look and watch, it's plain as day. And they make the same mistake when they try to "convert" us, they resort to emotional feel good methods, because they think inside our thoughts work like theirs.

We either have to force our will on them, like they are doing to us, our we have to cross the line and "educate" them in a way that works for them. Just like their current leaders do. That doesn't mean we have to compromise our principles, it means we need to apply them better.

And finally.... I think the nut cases are a minority. Most people are in the middle. We don't need to convince them either way, we just need to get them back in action, to displace the crazies on both ends of the spectrum.

That's what the BioLogos Foundation had as their mission since 2007, trying to get people to accept evolution by "respecting their faith". They've failed spectacularly, and have now switched over from trying to promote evolution to evangelical Christians, to coming up with ways to twist biology so that it comports with the Bible.

I really can't agree with your "failed spectacularly" quote. The BioLogos Foundation exists to promote dialog between scientists and theologians and since 2007 they have been (to many) a shining light where none has previously existed. Because the site is around stimulating conversation, many diverse and often highly influential writers expound their thoughts. This might result in an article that "twist(s) biology", but that is somewhat expected. Note as well that BioLogos also is reaching out to fundamentalist Christians and focuses heavily on theology and how a high view of Scripture looks in relation to evolution. If your focus is as a scientist on the science, you probably won't get much from the site.

As far as what's happened (and happens) in Texas, it truly is appalling. Anyone who ever starts pleading that the experts need to be fought, needs to have a permanent red flag tattooed on their forehead.

That latter feature means that states with large student populations, like Texas and California, have an outsized influence on education in other states, as textbook publishers work hard to ensure that their products can sell in the largest markets possible.

With the lower cost and flexibility of eBooks one particular market shouldn't influence as much.

Alot of it is not the physical cost of printing the books but the actual cost of creating and editing them. An ebook is not going to help that at all, in fact having multiple versions will just increase costs.

The vast majority of the cost in creating a book, any book, is in everything except the physicality. Between 80-90% of a typical books cost is in writing, editing, marketing, etc. The balance is even worse for books that require a large number of subject matter experts, such as textbooks, as SME's do not come cheap and often you need dozens or even hundreds of them, depending on the topic.

How much cost to create a book?

Depends on the book of course, but as I said above, the production costs of a book are only 10-20% the physical portion. The rest is creative costs. This has been covered extensively on web sites run by authors and publishers, and I even did the experiment myself pretending I was going the complete self publishing route and laying out the costs to me assuming low numbers and worst case shipping(its in my post history about a year ago).

If you want to win the war against ignorance, you do it by educating the stupid, not yelling at them for being stupid.

Is it actually a war against ignorance - or against totalitarian religion? And are these people actually stupid - or stubborn?

Not only ignorance and stupidity are very different concepts, but neither of them necessarily applies in this situation.

Stupid: one that is unable to be learn.Ignorant: one that has not learned yet.Willfully Ignorant: one that has not learned yet and is unwilling to learn.

This is a struggle against willful ignorance, not regular ignorance or stupidity. They have a willfully esqued view of reality. When you hear "freedom of religion," they hear "freedom of Christianity." They willfully won't admit to a difference between public education and religious education. They are science sceptics of the highest degree, simultaneously benefiting from the knowledge they willfully ignore. These individuals are at best useless to the advancement of civilization and at worst detrimental to such advancement.

And the absolute worst part is our elected officials are a mirror of those they represent. We have a lot of ignorant people in society and they elect representatives that are either as ignorant or as willfully ignorant as the electorate. If we could mix a larger population together to elect those in charge, it would at least give less power to extremiests, hence education should be decided on the federal level, not state level. I don't see a negative state to federalize what is taught. At least all the children in the country would be near the same page.

Actually I was thinking how the followers of one wacky middle-eastern religion on a US school board are pretty much the same as followers of another wacky middle-eastern religion on the school boards of certain middle-eastern countries.

There is one notable difference, at least the girls have the opportunity to go to school in the US. Still they'll grow up to have their reproductive rights challenged every 4 years.

Nail, meet hammer. "If people actually start thinking, they'll notice how terrible our policies are! We need to make sure the next generation of voters doesn't know how to think!"

To be fair, I think it's an emergent behavior rather than a well thought-out conspiracy. The people perpetrating the policies are themselves products of upbringings that valued ignorance and religiosity, and saw science as suspicious and/or satanic.

In their ideological purity, they seek to protect the next generation from what they see as threats to their immortal souls (aka, understanding the world). They don't actually understand that they are making the next generation unemployable in an information economy that values critical thinking and at least a basic understanding of the world as it actually exists.

Stupid: one that is unable to be learn.Ignorant: one that has not learned yet.Willfully Ignorant: one that has not learned yet and is unwilling to learn.

This is a struggle against willful ignorance, not regular ignorance or stupidity. They have a willfully esqued view of reality.

This is really the crux of the problem, and sadly the worst thing you can do is try to convince these people that their views are wrong. One of the most reliable psychological quirks is that a person with strong beliefs in something will only strengthen those beliefs if they are faced with information that contradicts them. This tendency is even stronger if that information is factual or cannot easily be refuted - all you're doing is making the problem even worse. The only solution is to minimize the damage these people can do to society, because there's absolutely no way to change their views for the better.

EDIT: As mentioned below, there are ways to work around those people to change the system, but you do have to work around them if you can't unseat them. There's no way to even challenge the current entrenched establishment, much less change it in any significant fashion.

As for reaching certain people with logic - they can't be reached that way! Give it up, they don't think that way.

I agree for a certain (lost) segment of the population. But...

Quote:

Most people are in the middle. We don't need to convince them either way, we just need to get them back in action, to displace the crazies on both ends of the spectrum.

The trick here is to work on the fence-sitters. Not with a hammer but examples of success, and an enticement to deploy critical thinking.

But it is by no means easy; it takes a long time to lay out the foundation (in many cases, spanning generations) and the message requires nuance and acceptance of uncertainty (as opposed to simplified black/white thinking that dogma typically encourages). Statistics is important as an anylitical tool - it should be prioritized over trig and calculus in schools. And role models are essential to impressionable minds.

Unfortunately, this has to take place in a very hostile battlefield, where the opposition changes tactics (ironically: 'evolve') to better thwart any effort that threatens their authority.

Content is a fixed cost (well, there are royalties, but most textbooks are flat-fee). You contract authors, give them a spec, write a check. This can be a lot of money, but it is essentially the same whether you sell one book or a million.

The physical books themselves are variable costs. Economies of scale mean that the costs go down as volume goes up (the millionth book costs less than the second), but there is still a marginal cost per book.

Let's say you pay $1m for the content (author, editors, photo rights, etc). And let's ignore economies of scale and say that each book costs $2 to produce and ship. If you sell 1000 books, you're right: the content was over 99% of the cost. But if you two million books and amortize the content cost across them while still paying for the production of each and every book... suddenly the content is cheap (20%) and the physical books are expensive (80%).

Willfully Ignorant: one that has not learned yet and is unwilling to learn.

This is a struggle against willful ignorance, not regular ignorance or stupidity.

You know, I think at least some of them actually have learned what "secular" scientists say about evolution and related subjects. They just refuse to accept it as true because of their religion. So it's not exactly willful ignorance. Not in the sense that "if only they read a book on evolution...".

I wonder why universities don't do something about this problem through a modification of their admissions policies. Imagine if universities simply disqualified such programs as meeting admission eligibility. I suspect it would be much harder for this to have happened if even the top tier schools like Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford made any student in eligible for admission based on those standards.

I wonder why universities don't do something about this problem through a modification of their admissions policies. Imagine if universities simply disqualified such programs as meeting admission eligibility. I suspect it would be much harder for this to have happened if even the top tier schools like Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford made any student in eligible for admission based on those standards.

So then what happens to the bright, independent thinking student from Texas who works hard, knows that her textbooks are full of lies, learns voraciously outside of school while still getting a 4.0, and wants to get a top-tier education so she can come back and right the wrongs?

I don't think you can throw out candidates because of the curriculum of their school system. Now, making a working knowledge of evolution and science part of admissions, that makes sense. But I expect it already is (can you even get into Harvard without AP credits these days?).

Looking back, as someone who went through the TX public school system in the 1990s, I thought my middle school and high school education was pretty good. I don't remember learning any of this religiously-influenced revisionary crap. And boy am I glad I didn't. Then again, I went to "the best" school district in the Austin area (Eanes ISD). People back then didn't seem to combine religion and politics as much back then either (at least in my limited world-view).

And as someone who did go though the TX public school system in question, I will definitely be watching this program despite me knowing it will make me angry and depressed at the same time.

Remind me to never send my children (whenever I have them) to a public school in TX until all these whackjobs are out and the standards are back where they should be -- based on fact.

It's dumb for Texans to ignore science in place of all that they don't understand when they re-interpret the Bible. But to rewrite history to fit their stupid, misunderstood notions? Words fail me. I have a bunch of relatives in Texas, and the fact that they don't understand Jesus' message, or the fact that the Bible is a story book, not a accurate representation of history or science, is deeply sad.

Your rush to brand Christians as a cult lead to your inability to do math. Tithe (10%) of a non-college Christian is obviously far less than that of a higher paid, better educated Christian. Your argument falls flat - not to mention the ridiculousness of the entire story you propose! From my point of view the Liberals are rallying the unemployed and those who feel entitled to money they did noting to earn - but that's more of a political slant than religious. In any case stop pigeonholing groups of people!

The public school system in a state can have an important impact on the quality of the universities in that state. The president of LSU testified they lost a couple of highly qualified scientists for research and teaching positions because of the Louisiana Science Education Act, which promotes creationism in public schools. It's a rush to be last place in all education, even at the university level.

A curious German view: Over here, every student is required to visit an ethics or religious education course, and is free to choose between protestant/catholic/secular options. The churches are free to define the curriculum for their respective courses. This ensures no one is indoctrinated against his will, and that religious freedom is honoured (there are efforts under way to create muslim curricula). Also, the curriculum is designed by a board appointed by the churches, not by nutheads. Obviously, other curricula (biology!) are designed by other people (although there might be some idiots there). This “seperation” of church and state via binding legal contracts seems to work so far. Are you telling me the US don't even have a remotely similar system?

I am constantly amazed how “(religius) freedom” can be perverted until someone thinks it's their obligation to force their worldview down others throats.